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OPINION

Editorial: Help farmers survive labor, climate woes

Ventura County Star
Published 6:00 a.m. PT Aug. 4, 2018

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Strawberries are picked in a strawberry field at Tamai Family Farms in Oxnard. Strawberries were valued at $654,902,000, according to the 2016 Ventura County Crop & Livestock Report that was released Tuesday.(Photo: CHUCK KIRMAN/THE STAR)Buy Photo

The overall value of crops grown in Ventura County declined for a second straight year in 2017, the Board of Supervisors learned last week, and member Kelly Long responded by urging all of us to “buy local.”

“It’s important that you are driving the economy of Ventura County, and that’s one way that everyone can help,” she told The Star. “It’s very much a group effort as to how we get there.”

That’s a nice thought and certainly one we should all take to heart, given the important role the agricultural industry plays in our economy, culture and identity. But there are two bigger conversations we all should be having when it comes to the future of farming in Ventura County, both of which were part of The Star’s story Wednesday:

Climate change and immigration reform.

The shortage of farm labor here is an ongoing and immediate threat. Global warming is all that and more; a long-term challenge touching almost every aspect of farming. Both are beyond local control but not beyond local advocacy.

“Growers have to deal with weather events, labor and water (shortages) and the high value of land,” Chief Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Korinne Bell told The Star. “It’s very difficult to farm in Ventura County, and I commend those who stay with it (because) it’s very challenging and they aren’t getting a lot of profit from this.”

Bell largely produced the 2017 Ventura County Crop & Livestock Report, which was released Tuesday and estimated the gross value of our agricultural industry to be about $2.1 billion last year. That’s about 0.4 percent less than 2016’s value, which was 4.2 percent less than in 2015. And the latest figures don’t account for December’s devastating Thomas Fire, which caused more than $170 million in agricultural damage.

The county’s 2016 crop report highlighted the shortage of farmworkers here, and the situation remains acute. Blame a lack of affordable housing, stepped-up immigration enforcement and greater competition for labor in other areas and industries. And it may get worse as Thomas Fire rebuilding accelerates and draws farmworkers to higher-paying construction work.

An estimated 60 percent of Ventura County’s 36,000 farmworkers are undocumented. John Krist, CEO of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, told The Star last week that growers are increasingly turning to the federal H-2A visa program, which allows them to hire foreign guest workers on temporary work visas to fill seasonal jobs. But that labor is more expensive, and the program faces an uncertain future under the Republican-controlled Congress.

Krist argued in January that political pressure must be exerted to ease federal barriers against migrant farmworkers, and we agree. Our elected leaders need to recognize the economic importance of our farmworkers and take action now. And our cities and county must continue to work on providing more affordable farmworker housing.

Krist also told The Star last week that recent heat waves have damaged tree fruit here. “If this is the new normal pattern, where we have multiple severe heat events every year, it will wreak havoc with the timing of production,” he said. Coincidentally, in that same issue of The Star, a story on a scorching July worldwide declared, “Record-breaking heat waves … are likely to become more common” because of climate change.